I offer e-mail follow up to my clients, within reason of course. Usually a few minutes are enough to answer and unblock a situation. This e-mail came to me in that context, and it summarises issues which happen more often than not with a lot of people. So I asked the sender, who choose "Sophia" as her pseudo, if I could publish her question, thinking that it might help YOU. If you are reading this now, I imagine that something in the title rang a bell for you?
Here are a few tips on each point.
Hi Christine, well, what I'm doing is not nice,
Nice for whom? For you or for me? You cannot presume what I think. I can choose to read or answer, or not. So I can choose if I find it nice that you're writing or not. What do YOU choose? Are you writing just because you like being "not nice" or for another reason?
For you who are reading this, and maybe don't dare asking for help when things are difficult, whether it's asking a close friend or somebody else, think about this. If you feel safe enough to ask, give the person the authorisation to choose what THEY think of it. If you felt you could trust this person, they will be able to tell you when they can't help. And if they can't, maybe you are giving them an opportunity to learn to define and communicate their own limits? Either way, if asking for help brings guilt, shame or anything else along those lines, this is something you might want to tap on.
I only write when I feel like throwing everything away (EFT rounds, tap tap),
Let the first EFT-er who never went through such a phase stand up! (well, it seems that everybody remains seated!)
This reaction is absolutely normal and happens regularly. I experienced it it, and most of my clients will recognise themselves too!
EFT can lead to wonderful minute-wonders, and we could believe this is the rule and feel impatient when it doesn't happen all the time. The thing is, minute-wonders are an exception, not a rule. Sophia is dealing with a very complex personal history. Even if she has experienced minute-wonders and will probably experience more, she has quite a long list of limiting beliefs and traumas, both old and recent, deep or light enough. It will probably require that she invests her time and energy for a few months of focused tapping, even though anything can happen with EFT, and it could also be faster than we could think. It is normal to feel discouraged at some stage.
If you feel like dropping it all, you have many choices. Here are a few examples (this list is NOT exhaustive). You can:
A - decide that it's really not worth it, and drop this solution. Maybe EFT is not for you, and maybe you'll find YOUR solution somewhere else. Or maybe not. What is your gut feeling?
B - ask yourself what you would say to a dear loved friend who would be in a similar situation: "drop it, you'll never succeed anyway." or something like "I understand it's difficult right now, you feel stuck, it's normal to feel put off. But do you remember that time when you told me how it had really helped? Maybe it's worth giving it another go, just to see what happens?" Remember this is a person you really love, a person you want to help... What would you do? What if that person you love was.. yourself?
C - choose to really get into your anger... and tap along. What if it got you through this?
D - ask yourself if this situation reminds you of another one. You could find a lead on a topic or memory to tap on, that could also solve today's issue?
What other choices can you see?
but if I stop, I'm thinking I'm useless...
Well... Would that be a judgment you have on yourself? If it is, is it really yours or does it come from another person who taught you this judgment, a person you believed? During the first 6 years of our lives, we are like sponges, we literally absorb whatever "grown-ups" do or say as if it was THE truth. In a perfectly subconscious way, we then replicate what we "learned". A parent or teacher telling you "you are useless", either in a repetitive way or at a moment when you were particularly insecure is enough for you to record this information as a "truth", one of these famous limiting beliefs. And then for you to repeat it to yourself again and again, in a perfectly subconscious way, since it has become an automatic program.
Now that you are aware of it, do you feel like carrying on with this judgment and the feeling it leaves in you, the impact on your morale? Or would you rather change that script? Change the judgement and express something else? E.g. "I have a choice"?
The more you repeat to yourself that you are useless (or ridicule, or guilty, or hopeless, or weak, or that you cannot change etc...), the more you believe it is true, and the more you find ways to prove to yourself that this IS true. Our subconscious mind loves being right and will help us to find proof that what we focus on is real. The typical example is the read cars you spot everywhere when you just bought one.
So since you will be focusing on an idea or dwell on a word, why not make it a nice one? "I feel calm and relax" for example? That's the one I use instead of "I feel nervous" in tense situations. :-) Identify a quality that makes you feel good and that you want to grow. Make it your new chorus line.
in this situation, my entourage pays for my anger.
Again this is a reaction most people experience. Some say that the best defense is a good offense. While we're busy attacking others, we're sure not to look at our own issues.
Have you ever experienced yourself or seem somebody facing an angry person or even an animal with great calm? Aggressiveness can drop very fast or not that fast. But eventually, it will. Gandhi would be the expert in that area!
What if this was not about defense? What it the real line of action was to acknowledge your suffering and give yourself love, compassion, kindness, call it whatever you like? Imagine the beloved friend again. You can feed or even deepen their low feelings in an attempt to support them "You are so right to feel low and to drop everything, nothing can help anyway" Is this really helping?
Or, you could help them to see the situation in a different light. Yet another choice...
Just a tip, if you would authorise yourself to tap "just once more", I would advise you to do just this: tap while saying how discouraged, or angry you feel, explore your wish to drop it all, focus on it and tap along. Usually, after a while, the "drop it all feeling" changes, either to direct you to a specific event that requires your attention, or to just collapse on its own. Try it?
Whatever happens, if you kept only one "should" in your vocabulary, it would probably be this one:
You should ALWAYS foster hope, however small it might seem sometimes, and be tenacious on your way towards well being. Whatever tool you are using, you deserve your happiness. Keep going, you will find it on your road, even if it doesn't look like what you originaly thought it would.
Did this help? You can comment here.
"Sophia's" answer could give you a few more ideas
Since I expressed myself to tell you that I was fed up, I'm managing with a few "taps taps" created here and there, using my feelings, with my words, my instinct.
I also feel I have a Great need to express myself, to say when a situation annoys me... Maybe it is because I kept silent for 20 years... Maybe this is the reason that led me to train in NVC (Non-Violent Communication), to allow me to say things without losing people. Know how to say, know how to express... but being able to SAY AND NO LONGER KEEP THINGS WITHIN ME... Pfew!!
Thank you Sophia for sharing
This is usually related to an event happening in childhood, but not necessarily. Using EFT, we address the issue on the person we were at that time, our "ECHO". We no longer are this person, but this person is still in us, and more specifically, we still carry what they learned at the time ("the teacher said I was not good enough, that must be true. I will never be good enough.").
It gives us a second chance to review the reaction we had at that time, and change it with the insight and wisdom we gained since the original event. While we don't change what happened at the time, we change our perception of it, and therefore, what would have been a traumatic memory can become a non-event.
In essence, the Sedona method offers us to learn from our unwanted feelings and release them.
It goes in 4 steps, assuming you've identified the feeling.
1.Welcome the feeling
Then ask yourself 3 questions :
2.Could I let "it" go?
3. Would I let "it" go?
4. When?
depending on the issue and the person, I might either guide them through the process while tapping, or use the process to trigger aspects, tap the aspects away, and start again. Is the helping, Till?
.EFT as all techniques of Energy Psychology, provides us with a holistic approach for improving our well-being. It is based on several techniques, mainly acupunture on one side, an ancient Chinese Healing method, and modern psychology on the other side.EFt can also be used together with other techniques such as NLP (Neuro Linguistic Programming) or Ho'oponopono.
EFT does not involve any needles, and can be performed with success on and by children from an early age.
The process (very simplified) is based on "rounds" or "series" of tapping. It begins with tapping on the side of the hand, then a number of specific points on the upper part of the body, while talking about the problem at hand. The intensity of the targeted emotion or pain is measured before and after each round, ona 0 (no intensity, all is well) to 10 (hight intensity) scale.
EFT evolved on top as a self healing technique helping as well on physical ailments where emotions don't seem to be involved at all. However, EFT is NOT a medical procedure, and you are advised to consult the appropriate medical staff for any medical issue.
You will find here a free manual to learn it on your own.
You can successfully use EFT yourself as easily as you would use a screw driver for a simple project (like putting one screw in a piece of wood). But you might face more complex situations (like building a house frame with your screw driver!). In that case, I'd suggest you contact me for professional support. I might be able to answerr your question immediately. If it is not the case, I always offer a 15-20 minutes initial free meeting so you have all the information in hand when you decide to work with me. Enjoy your discovery!
Are you being specific enough?
If you tap with "even though I don't feel good, I love and accept myself"... well, it's highly improbable that anything shall happen! We're dealing with our subconscious, and our subconscious is like a child. It needs very precise indications on what is to be done! That was actually Ger's issue at the beginning.
What is it exactly that makes you "feel bad"? Here are a few examples:
- Even though I am anxious about the meeting in 2 days....
- Even though I have this heartburn because I ate too much...
- Even though I feel guilty that I didn't do this or that...
- Even though I have a pinching pain in my right shoulder...
- Even though it made me feel sad when so and so said blah blah blah....
Are you using your own words?
When you learn EFT, you learn the usual formula "I love and accept myself". However, for at least 2/3 of my clients, when they first come to me and I ask them to say "I love and accept myself" and tell me how true it FEELS (0-not true, 10-absolutely true), they often answer something between 1 and 6-7. What is the point in trying to be positive using a sentence you don't really believe in? Julia would probably have had no results if we'd kept going with that formula. Find your own "magic formula", until you can truly love and accept yourself. It could be something like :
- I am a good mother/father/friend/sister/brother...
- I am honest and reliable.
- God/the Universe (adapt it to YOUR belief system) loves me and I am a good person.
- I am a loving and caring person.
- I am generous.
- I'm good at my job and I'm proud of myself.
- I am open to the idea that I could one day accept myself....
Is your pain hiding something?
Let's say you've worked on all the aspects of your shoulder pain (pinching, pulling pain, restricting etc..). You got some sort of results, but then, that's it, it won't bulge any further. You could assume that it's "good enough" or that "it doesn't work".
Or you could choose to find out why the pain is still there. Is there a hidden thought or feeling that might be keeping the pain going? Would that pain be covering another one? Louise's "stiffness" is a good example. Would it be worth exploring a few more avenues? Such as:
- When did it start?
- What was happening at that moment in my life?
- How did this make me feel? (anxious, helpless, worried, sad, furious, ashamed, angry, depressed, panicked, embarrassed...)
- Does this pain remind me of another time when I had a similar pain? If yes, what was happening at THAT time?
- Say it's a "nagging" pain, am I nagging myself for anything? Shoulder pain : what am I shouldering?
Are you holding any deep resentment, anger, sadness... ?
These are prime candidates as pain inducers. Look beyond the pain, and see if there's anything or anybody (including you), you need to forgive or let go? Julia's story again is one of many examples. A few tapping ideas would be :
- Even though Joe Blog really hurt me when he said xxx, maybe one day I could choose to forgive him.
- Even though my teacher said I was useless when I was 9 years old, he was probably doing the best he could, I'm tired carrying him with me, I might choose to forgive him,
- Even though I felt really hurt when xxxx happened, I forgive myself for carrying this resentment around.
Would you have a very good reason to keep this pain or feeling with you?
Sometimes, it's quite dificult to imagine ourselves without a pain, it being in the body, mind or spirit. We've lived with this pain for so long, that it's now part of ourselves, so if we get rid of the pain, we might loose a little bit of ourselves. Marguerite's arthritic pain was one of these.
Or people expect us to have a specific problem, because that's the way it is... Or so THEY believe. Mary's nervous exhaustion might help there.
We "prefer" to go on with the pain, instead of having to face a new "me" or a new life. All this is obviously completely beyond our conscious mind, and it usually goes with anger against ourselves, shame, depression and the like. A few typical examples could be : a pain in the foot/leg (prevents us to move forward, to go somewhere, in our lives or physically), back pain (lack of support...), pain in the neck (well, who in your life is a pain in he neck?!?! :-) or in the shoulders (something heavy we carry, like a responsibility or guilt...). The limit to that list is our imagination and capacity to create... It's endless. Here are a few avenues to explore:
- What/who would I be without this pain?
- If the pain went away, what could/should I do?
- If I don't feel this, what will people say? And how will it affect me?
- What is this pain preventing me from doing?
Are you being persistent enough?
"Minutes wonders", as EFT's founder Gary Craig called them, do happen, more than you'd expect. These are the times where a 2 or 3 minutes tap might relieve a person completely, sometimes from very old issues. It was like that for Natalie or for Shirley. However, more often than not, it does take persistence to get to the result. Examples are plentiful: Lynda's story could be considered a minute wonder, because nobody could have imagined such a stunning result, but it also took persistence, over about 20 minutes. Dealing with first aid type issues might also take persistence, like the fire log story there, where it did take 5-10 minutes tapping non stop. Try tapping 5-10 minutes non stop on one issue, unless you're in acute pain at that time, as I was, you might get bored of tapping, stop, and miss the possibility of wonderful healing! And what about Anne's heartburn? After all, after the first round of tapping, the intensity was only down from 4 to 3, not an impressive result, but with persistence it was a very different story... A few tips to fuel your persistence :
- What does not having an immediate result make you feel? (bored, disappointed, angry, helpless, annoyed, sceptical, stupid, uninterested, even more convinced that this doesn't work ?:-).... Tap on that feeling. .
- Trying tapping on the issues every couple of hours, a few days in a row if necessary...
- Talk to somebody you trust about your pain, they might have an insight about it you never considered....
- Tap without words, just focussing on the feeling, visualise the feeling/pain... flying away from you...
- and obviously I assume you explored all the other tips in this article!
Is your pain too deep?
Sometimes, we are just trying to bite more than we can chew. Some pains are so deeply ingrained in our personal history, and we are so used to them, that we can't really see them anymore, therefore we can't sort them out on our own. We miss the point. Isn't it always so much easier to tell a friend what they might be doing wrong, when we don't see what WE are not doing right?
That's when you need to get help. Find a practitioner you feel comfortable with (me? :-), and talk to them. They'll help you go the extra mile to either find the source of the issue and un-root it, or to address enough aspects of the issue that you don't need to get to the source anymore. Also, sharing them is part of the relief mechanism.
Any more questions or comments, please contact me.